[Ardour-Dev] Thanks!!: was Need a 32 bit Ardour

[mazarick at bellsouth.net]

I just thought I'd drop a quick but sincere Thank You for the great help everyone has provided with my questions/issues with building something suitable for a WFS system.   All of the input has been great.   It has kept me from "spinning my wheels" using approaches that would not take me where I want to go.

There have been several good alternatives proposed as well as much more in depth explanations of why the sonic landscape is as it exists currently.  It was a real temptation to try to make the 32 bit ardour approach work, especially since I have a 32 bit version running with the same o/s (FC8 + CCRMA), but on a system with less PCI card slots.  Pointing out that there isn't a feasible path to get there was very useful (plus there still remained a lot of uncertainty if I somehow managed to get there).   I really appreciate someone as talented as Paul taking the time to point out some things to me that were non-obvious to me.

A really key piece of info for me was that the WFS 'Wonder' program could take into account non-uniform speaker placement.  I had previously dismissed this option because I thought it was based on uniform speaker placement, and my speaker setup isn't going to be uniform.  Thanks, Torben!   You da Man!!

Fons also provided great input to some possible alternative approaches.   I'll try them next if or when I get frustrated trying to make "Wonder" work for me (I haven't even downloaded it yet).    There are a host of other issues surrounding this that I don't know how to do.   I'll ask about them later.   As an example, I'll eventually want to be able to play 'pink noise' thru the speaker setup and adjust the speaker equalization with a microphone (since I'll have separate bass and treble channels <100hz and >4000hz, and will also want to adjust the ~30 middle frequency channels for sonic clarity).   Plus, I haven't even started to discuss another topic that I only know by theory - ambisonic recording.   A WFS system and ambsonic mics go with each other, but I don't have either right now (I do have a small AKG clip-on mic for my sax, so I could start a 'hope chest' of material to make an ambisonic mic setup).

Sometimes I listen carefully to what is 'not' said.   One thing I didn't hear that would make a big difference to how much effort I put in this thing is:   "Just how good is this thing?"   Since I've never really heard a WFS system, especially at home, I don't know if it will be slightly better than stereo, much better than stereo, slightly better than 7.1, much better than 7.1, or about the same as mono.   It may be 'old hat' and passe info to you guys, but it is completely unknown to me.   Of course, I wouldn't expect those that have put a lot of their careers into making a WFS system happen to comment (they would be compelled to say it was great), but an observation from someone who has witnessed/heard one in action would be greatly appreciated - especially from the key individuals who have worked so hard to create this sonic-scapes.

I'm typing this up on a lame webmail browser using a notebook), which is only slightly better than text messaging, so I'll cut this message off, and say one last time...

THANK YOU!!

-Mike

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ardour.org/pipermail/ardour-dev-ardour.org/attachments/20081201/8399a861/attachment-0002.htm>